Its Me Chrissy J

Southall parkrun #99 – 30th December 2023

Today I visited Southall parkrun on their 99th event (poor planning on my part should have saved myself for the big 100th next week but I am just down for post Christmas family visits)

Southall parkrun location

The parkrun is held in Southall park conveniently located on several bus routes and not a million miles away from the main tube stations. It also forms part of the Elizabeth line challenge (if you like to join in with those as I do!)

There aren’t however any toilets available in the park which meant some extra planning on my part and hoping the buses weren’t delayed getting me back to the hotel!

On arrival I was clearly giving tourist vibes and was greeted by several of the very friendly volunteer team who were happy to chat about the course and show me where bags etc can be left by the start.

The first timer briefing was given by Tunde with a good explanation of the course which is a small anticlockwise start and then 3 clockwise loops of the parks perimeter.

It is mainly tarmac with a small trail section at the back of the park and finishing on a short stretch of grass. It would be perfectly suitable for buggy runners, it is also lovely and flat apart from a tiny dip to the far corner – perfect for a PB run!

Event #99

The rain was starting just before 9am but it didn’t dampen the RDs spirits (who was just one of the friendliest RD’s I have ever met!) who gave a lovely prerun talk including, of course, thanking all the wonderful volunteers (including some tourist volunteers)

3, 2, 1 and we were off! The front runners were on the other side of the first anticlockwise loop before I had even crossed the start line it felt!

Every marshal on the course was enthusiastic and cheering on the parkrunners which was great to see. They were also very much needed as the course is slightly confusing the first time round with so many turns! But the marshals did a great job keeping everyone on track.

I passed the tailwalker on my 3rd lap and it was lovely to see a small group of walkers enjoying their parkrun at a walking pace and not being hurried on as I have seen so often recently.

Even through the finish funnel the volunteers cheered you right to the end and having a photographer at the end as well as along the route was a great touch.

They also had a handy way to communicate if you didn’t want to be in photos, you can just cross your arms and you’ll be removed from any photos! We will definitely be adopting this to our runs in future.

Southall parkrun #99 Stats

83 participants took part
3 first time parkrunners
26 first timers to Southall parkrun
6 new personal bests achieved (PBs)
Tourists from Worcester, (that’s me!) Aylesbury and Reading

Thanks to this week’s Southall parkrun volunteers

Aleyna JASWAL ▪️ Aman JASWAL ▪️ Babatunde DAWODU ▪️ Bikram Singh BRAR ▪️ Christine JONES ▪️ Gillian MORGAN ▪️ Jags SANGHERA ▪️ James JERALD ▪️ Jaswinder Kaur MARBAY ▪️ Jav SONDH ▪️ Kate HENRY ▪️ Kuldip GILL ▪️ Mark POULSON ▪️ Michael SHEARWOOD ▪️ Mike SHEARING ▪️ Mohamed AZIZ ▪️ Neil MIRANDA ▪️ Nisha PATEL ▪️ Ranjithamalar NAGARAJAH ▪️ Sarah AUSTIN ▪️ Sukhvinder UPPAL ▪️ Sunita MAINEE ▪️ Sushma SHARMA

Can’t wait to visit again and good luck next week for your 100th event!

Christine Jones